Comment why not a kindle ? (Score 1) 350
Much cheaper - at scale I daresay you could get it below 100 USD given that it's price is already heading down.
For reading purposes, the epaper display is simply unbeatable.
On the other hand if you wanted to use it for various other (note taking, spreadsheets,etc.) purposes, then why not an Android tablet ? Australia has the Millenius Android tablet for about 200 USD.
The specific advantage of this approach is that, if the school wants to develop custom apps (which in high likelihood it will), it is much cheaper and less cumbersome (app store policies) than the Apple SDK.